Cold Touch (44 page)

He’d cal ed from the driveway. He’d knelt there, touching the dirty tracks left

by the most recent vehicle, and had had some kind of psychic vision.

A big stand of tangled woods. A trailer. A shed. A chain looped across a

gravel driveway with a Private! No Trespassing sign hanging from it.

The most critical detail: The chain and sign had looked new.

Which led Gabe to the only possible conclusion: Traynor couldn’t be

squatting on some random public land like he had before. If he’d blocked the

road, put up signs, he had to feel confident that they’d be obeyed, meaning he

had the right to post them.

He’d bought land somewhere.

“He’s got to be there,” he said, watching as Mick keyed through page after

page of records, looking for any transfers of wooded, undeveloped property

of ten acres or more, going back a decade.

There were a lot. Too many. This would never work.

“Wait,” Mick suddenly said, snapping his fingers. “I’ve been looking for

individual buyers; this is the fourth or fifth property I’ve seen that was bought by

some kind of holding or development company.”

Which wouldn’t be hard to set up, not if you had a little bit of money to hire a

lawyer. And if he’d had money to buy the property, obviously he could afford it.

“Can you cross-reference the names of these companies with his name or

alias?”

Mick clicked the keys, his gloved hands flying over them without a single

misspel ing. He’d obviously become very adept to life with gloves.

“Oh, my God, here he is!” he said, raising his voice so loud that al the

others, who’d been working in the conference room, came racing into Mick’s

office. Every one of them looked hopeful, al of them having spent the past

several hours worrying about their friend.

Gabe had been prepared to not like these friends of Olivia’s—and he stil

didn’t like that they hadn’t even thought about how her gift was affecting her.

But right now, he couldn’t think of four other people he’d rather have on his

side when he went to find her.

Mick smashed his index finger on the print button. “He bought it three years

ago, a big section of woodland west of I-95, between here and Brunswick.”

Gabe had already grabbed the page off the printer and was punching the

address into his GPS.

“I guess we’re not exactly doin’ this by the book?” Derek asked.

Gabe knew what he meant and realized he’d completely put aside his job

as a police officer. He wasn’t waiting for a damn warrant or for anybody’s

permission or approval. He was going out there, finding Olivia and bringing

her home.

She’d left.

Olivia hadn’t even quite managed to accept Sunni’s vile betrayal as truth

before she’d heard the woman scream at her cousin, then get in her car and

drive away. Leaving Olivia here to die. This woman who’d babysat her as a

child, who’d pushed her and Brooke on the swings, who’d been to family

dinners and shared holidays and who slept in her father’s bed had abandoned

her to the ruthless hands of a psychotic monster. Not once, but twice.

The woman had pretended to love Dad, but people like Sunni didn’t

understand the concept of love. If she were capable of any kind of real

emotion, she wouldn’t have been able to just drive away from here, knowing

her cousin would never leave Olivia alive to testify against either of them.

Olivia had been waiting for Johnny to come back, but so far, he hadn’t. After

the car had driven away, he’d yel ed, “Seeya later, O-livvv-eee-a. Time for my

supper.” He’d stomped up the stairs and gone inside, the door slamming shut

behind him.

Alone in the dark, she remained alert, preparing. Sunni’s presence had

caught her off guard, but she stil had the knife, which she’d now begun to

scrape on a tiny rock, sharpening the blade. “It’s not over yet,” she whispered.

Suddenly, she heard a noise, a low, scraping sound from outside. She

tensed, trying to determine where it had come from, sure only that it had not

been from the direction of the camper. That squeaky door had remained firmly

shut, and not a single footstep had crushed against the gravel.

“Olivia?”

She tensed.
Sunni
.

The woman had come back, obviously on foot, and crept up to the back of

the shed.

“I’m going to get you out.”

Olivia hated the woman, wanted more than anything to tel her to go screw

herself, but no way was she going to turn away a chance of rescue.

“How?” she asked.

“I have spare keys to everything out here.”

Johnny had given her a spare key to his torture chamber. There was familial

love for you.

“I have to work fast once I go around to the front; if he looks out the window,

he’l see me. Just be ready to run as soon as I get the door open.”

Olivia moved to the door, stretching a little, flexing her calves, testing how

quickly she could bring up the knife.

No, she didn’t intend to use it on Sunni—not that the thought wasn’t

tempting.

She was going after Jack.

Final y, after what seemed like forever, she heard the clink of the chain and

the rattle of the lock. Sunni muttered a curse—obviously the wrong key—then

tried again. And again.

“Hurry,” Olivia ordered, wondering how long it would be before Johnny

looked outside.

“There!” The chain moved, separated, and the door slowly opened.

Sunni stood there, staring at her with guilty, tear-fil ed eyes ringed by dark

circles where her makeup had smeared. She stepped out of the way, letting

Liv out, then careful y pul ed the door closed again, looping the lock over the

chain.

Liv darted around behind the shed, crouching down, waiting for Sunni to

finish. Once she had, she joined her, sniffling. She reached out, trying to take

Olivia’s hand.

Liv yanked back. “Don’t touch me.”

“Livvie, I’m so sorry.”

“Shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”

“I know you hate me, and you have reason to. But please, at least believe

that I never meant for you to get hurt. Johnny was supposed to get the money

and let you go.”

Sure. Trust the psychotic to do the right thing. “Yeah, right.”

“You don’t understand how it was for Johnny and me. We grew up together

in foster care. We never had anything and just wanted a little money to make a

new start.”

“Cry me a fucking river.”

As if realizing there was no way Olivia was going to listen to her, Sunni let

out a self-pitying sigh, then said, “Come on. My car’s about a half mile away,

through the trees.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Olivia said. “Not without Jack.”

She’d run the last time, sure she’d be back in time to save a helpless boy.

He’d paid for it with his life. She wasn’t making that mistake again.

Her cousin’s child; Zachary had been this woman’s relative, too.

“You’re delirious,” Sunni whispered. “He hit you in the head. John Zachary is

dead. He’s been dead for twelve years.”

“Murdered by your loving cousin.”

“You’re wrong. He died in an accident,” Sunni replied, shaking her head.

She had obviously been tel ing herself a fairy tale so she could sleep at night.

“Johnny loved his son. He would never have hurt him.”

“Yeah, but he
did
hurt him,” Olivia snarled. “He lost his temper, got furious

because he thought Jack had betrayed him by letting me go, and he

murdered him.”

And he’d been doing it again, every four years, ever since.

“No, no!” Sunni insisted.

Disgusted by the bitch’s self-delusions, Liv sneered. “You real y don’t know

anything about that cousin of yours, do you? Ever since he murdered his own

son, he’s been kidnapping other people’s boys, holding them for years, then

kil ing them when they get too old for him to pretend they’re Jack. And one of

those helpless boys is inside that trailer right now.”

Sunni’s mouth fel open, and she let out a tiny cry. She might be the world’s

greatest actress, having pul ed off the part of loving girlfriend with that drippy

Southern accent that was nowhere to be heard now. But it was at least

possible that she hadn’t realized just how evil her cousin was.

Cold comfort, though.

“There’s something wrong with him; there always has been. He heard

voices, claimed that someone else was tel ing him what to do or that the

mysterious someone else had just done some of the things Johnny got

blamed for. He had a hard life. We both did.”

“Boo hoo,” she snapped. “Say one more word defending him, and I swear

to God I’l slap your face.” Then, trying to hold on to her fraying temper, she

added, “Go ahead, get out of here. Just cal nine-one-one. I’l stay here and

wait for them, unless I see him making a move on the boy.”

Sunni shook her head quickly, looking over her shoulder at the trailer, where

al remained stil and ominously silent. “I’m not leaving you . . .”

“For God’s sake, we don’t have time to mess around. At least cal the

police.”

“My phone’s in my car.”

Stupid,
stupid
woman.

“Then I guess you’re leaving me.” Liv put a hand on her back and pushed

her toward the woods. “Go.”

From behind them came a squeaking sound.

The door.

Oh, God, go!

Sunni went, darting into the woods. Liv could hear the snapping of limbs

and the rustling of leaves, and prayed Johnny did not.

He yel ed something, and her heart stopped. Then she realized he hadn’t

been yel ing at Sunni . . . but at the boy, who had just emerged from the

camper.

“Jack,” she whispered, knowing that wasn’t his name.

He was smal , undernourished, scrawny. Pale. His brown hair was long and

shaggy, his skinny shoulders slumped under an il -fitting old T-shirt. He

stumbled a little as he trudged down the stairs, and he kept his head down,

trying to make himself smal , unnoticed.

He looked broken.

“Do you know it’s only a few hours til your birthday, Jack?” the man said.

“And I got you a present. Gonna give you somethin’ that’l make you know what

it means to be a man.”

He cast a sly look toward the shed. Olivia, realizing what he meant, wanted

to puke, wondering if there was any evil, any degradation beneath him.

“And after you get your cherry popped, we’re gonna have us another kind of

fun together. You know al those times you asked me what I was doin’ out in the

shed and what those funny noises were? Wel , tonight, you are gonna find out.”

So, he wasn’t going to kil Jack right away. He was going to make him a

rapist and a murderer first.

Olivia gripped the pen knife, knowing that the moment Johnny came close

enough to see the lock had been opened, she’d have to act. She only hoped

the boy wasn’t so brainwashed that he’d try to help his captor.

They walked closer, the man clapping the boy on the back. Then suddenly,

from the woods behind her, Liv heard a snap, and a smal cry.

Johnny heard it, too. “What the hel ?” He reached into his pants and pul ed

out a gun Liv hadn’t even seen. Good lord, she’d thought she could go up

against this man with a knife, given what he’d done to Ty?

“You worthless bitch!” he howled.

For a second, Olivia was sure he’d seen her face, peeking out from behind

the shed, but he soon proved otherwise.

“You shoulda never come back! I woulda let you go, you dumb whore!”

Then he was running, darting into the woods. He ran right past the shed

—right past her—and kept going. Olivia could just make out a blond figure

running away from him, zigzagging through the trees, crying, “Johnny, no!”

Sunni had come back, and she’d drawn him away.

Olivia and Jack had a chance, just one chance.

And she was taking it.

Not giving it another thought, she ran out from behind the shed, charged to

the boy, swooped him into her arms, and ran as hard and fast as she could in

the other direction.

Gabe drove like a madman, not real y giving a damn that, beside him, Mick

was hanging on to the dashboard and, in the backseat, Julia was clutching the

door handle. The siren was on the roof, blaring at everyone in his way to make

room. Somewhere behind him, Aidan and Derek were fol owing, but they’d

fal en back, not having the power of a tricked-out, eight-cylinder police car

made for pursuits.

“There!” Mick said, pointing to the exit.

Gabe flew down the ramp, taking the curve so fast he thought the two inner

tires would lift off the ground. “Which way?”

Mick looked at the GPS. “Right, then one mile. It should be on your left.

Hopeful y you’l see a new chain and a No Trespassing sign.”

And if he did, Gabe was driving right the hel through them.

“Your ghost show up back there yet?” he asked Julia, eyeing her in the

rearview mirror.

“No. I’m sure he’s stil looking.”